


Redemption and Other Lies The Universe Told

by ravynfyre



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-07 14:46:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18412799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravynfyre/pseuds/ravynfyre
Summary: "You ever heard of Angels" Max asks. "Angelic beings?""That's like... the good guys, right? 'Fear Not' and all that? Flaming swords and big white wings, yeah?" Dag asks.Furiosa watches as Max rolls his eyes but he nods and shrugs at the same time, mutters, "Sanctimonious with wings and swords, yeah. But they can, um, Fall. Make choices. Go bad."Toast nods. "Yeah, I've heard those stories."Max shakes his head. "Not just stories." He levels an uncharacteristic direct stare at each and every one of them, meeting their eyes straight on as he says, "Real."The Sisters start talking over one another, refuting him, saying that he's clearly still crazy, but Furiosa... She just nods. "I've seen one. Where do you think Joe got so much of his power from so quickly?"Max doesn't seem surprised at all, almost seems to have expected that, in fact. "Lots of myths 'bout, uh... Angels that Fall." He shifts a little nervously, and is no longer meeting their gazes. "Ever wonder why, uh... you never hear any 'bout hmmm... Demons that, um... rise?"





	Redemption and Other Lies The Universe Told

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to v8roadworrier and an anon over on tumblr for the original idea!

Move move move movemove _movemoveMoveMOVE **MOVE!**_

It's pointless. He _knows_ it's pointless. He knows he can't outrun Them. Even if he were to ditch the car and shed his guise and take wing, he'd _never_ manage to outrun Them. But it's just pure visceral fear and instinct running him now, and that instinct tells him to slam the accelerator to the floor and race for the horizon, no matter how futile it is.

He has to at least try.

He can hear the baying of Their Hounds and the thunder of hoofbeats and the hiss of the wind of Their wings behind him, even over the roar of the V8 under the hood of his car. She's pushing the redline, shaking in her engine mounts, what passes for the road this far out vanishing under her tires almost as quickly as the illumination from her headlights hits it. 

It's pointless. He knows it's pointless. His luck will run out and he'll drive her into a hole he won't even see before the road vanishes out from under him, or They will quit toying with him and just snatch him up. He knows. He _KNOWS!_ But the baying and the pounding of hooves drives him on as fast as she'll go. Fear is ice in his veins, fire in his veins, _lightning_ in his veins pushing him beyond rational thought. If only....

 _“If wishes were horses...”_ Jessie's ghost whispers to him softly.

“Beggers would ride,” Max grunts in answer.

But wishes aren't horses, and neither are the things They ride. Not really. Even if the hoofbeats are right behind him, beside him, around him.

“Don't look. Just don't look,” he groans, gritting his teeth. Don't look. Don't look don't look don'tlookdon'tlookdon'tlookneverlookdon'tlookjustdon'tlookkeepdrivingneverlook-

But it's not just _pointless_ , it just isn't possible, because between one breath and the next, the Hunt... 

Is _There._

And he can't breathe.

The Interceptor is gone. He's floating. THEY have him. He's crushed under the deepest trenches of the sea. He's flung to the highest peaks of the tallest mountain. He's plunged into the boiling vent of an active volcano. He's locked into the core of a frigid glacier. He's mashed in Their grip and he cannot breathe or think or feel. All he can taste is the purest essence of _terror._ He tries to keep his eyes clamped shut, but that is not Their will, and with a keening whine, he feels his eyelids drift open upon-

Madness. Pure, unadulterated Insanity made manifest.

For a moment, a Hound raises its head from where it gnaws upon the end of his tail, a Raven rips strips from one of his wingtips, a Hawk tears claws into his shoulder, as the Hunt stares on impassively.

_**YOU ARE JUDGED.** _

Max can feel something wiggling in his mind, in his very brain. A Wyrm perhaps or a fingertip. He's beyond the ability to care any longer, his mind already beginning to splinter under Their regard, his eyes unable to fully comprehend Them. His thoughts are tearing themselves to pieces in the struggle to try and make sense of what his eyes are trying to tell him. The sound of hooves digging against mortal dirt grates in his ears, sends his fractured thoughts skittering in every direction like beetles in the sweep of a torch's light. 

He's nearly out of Guzz. He _is_ out of water. That isn't going to matter, though, is it? He's about to be Unmade now, so... Wait, where _is_ the Interceptor, anyway? Max tries to look around for his car, but there is only Them in an undulating mass that surrounds him from every direction at once.

For a moment, there are Four, and then there were countless Many, as numerous as the stars, except that there are no more stars, have been none, not since They have snatched him up.

Max wonders, quite suddenly, if his jacket has survived. He isn't sure that he can mange to stitch it back up again, if his wings have torn through it. Jessie taught him how to sew again. He'd forgotten since the last time he'd learned. Oh Jessie... he misses Jessie so much. And Sprog. His little Sprog. They never deserved...

The crawling feeling ripples through his brain again, and They turn him this way and that, dislodging the Raven, but not the Hound, who has moved on to chewing on his bad knee. Max still can't breathe, and his lungs ache. Once, he hadn't really needed to breathe that much. He's forgotten what that had been like. But he'd given that up long ago, when he gave up the blood and the fires and the torments.

There was a great Eye in his mind, turning his life inside out. He is not Captain Walker. He'd tried to tell them, but they would not listen. Maybe the plane had made it...

Last of the V8s. She's sweet speed and freedom wrapped in midnight fury. She's meanness set to music. Jessie would have loved-

Glory. Max had lied to Glory. There's nothing he could do. He shouldn't have looked back. No, he should have looked back sooner. He should escort them to the city. Why hadn't he? Why... He'd Felt something there.... Something... something wrong. Something familiar... Something... something infernal. Tried to lead it off, but the bastards came all the same.

They always come. Eventually. He's poison. Like sour earth. Only worse.

Max wishes the Hound would stop chewing on his fucking knee. It hurts. Should hurt, though. Deserves to hurt for what he did. For what he _is_. 

He misses the sea. The waves and the cool, her hand-

He's not an executioner. Max won't do her dirty work. She'll have to do it herself, because he won't. He's not that thing any longer. Won't be that thing any longer. Blaster is a child, no matter what his body had been... but that blood is on his hands now, too.

Laughter and music. Sprog had just been starting to walk. Waking up beside-

Blood on the asphalt. One little shoe. Motorcycles roared off in the distance. Rage, an old groove worn deep in his soul. A _comforting_ groove worn deep in his soul in the face of that pain. Old habits from eons past, like shrugging on an old jacket whose leather fits like a second skin. Rage and fury and vengeance and the highway as he hunts Toecutter down. As he'd hunted the pawns of his old kin down.

He misses colors. The blues and the greens and the purples and whites and _flowers._ He misses all the plants and the green. Taking Sprog to the park and the plants that Jessie would-

He should have just offered to help them all from the start. Max should just wait and sneak past Humungus and offer them his help and plan it all out better. Or just planned it out better himself and taken care of Humungus and his ilk right from the start. But everything still hurts so much, the rage still had such a tight grip on him... So many eons of anger and blood and rage still perches in his soul like a bloated tick, feeding on him like a sickness. Making it hard to think. Blood on the asphalt, one little shoe... the world is breaking and he'd lost his anchor.

Petrichor. Fog. Mist off the ocean. Walking barefoot in the wet grass. Jessie out under the stars, making lov-

Max can feel something tasting his fear. Sipping upon his adrenaline. Petting the pounding of his heart. 

Oatmeal cookies and chocolate cake. Jessie makes the best-

The Horsemen stare at him, unblinking, their Horses eyeing him with predatory regard. Hounds and massive hunting Cats swirl around the Multitude's hooves like the foam atop the waves of the sea, and overhead, Ravens and Hawks and Falcons and Winds and Wyrms and Thynges whip and whirl and spin in a dizzying array that would make him sick if Max hadn't already felt his mind slip away an eon ago when he'd been snatched up by Them.

_**AH... WE HAVE NOT SEEN YOUR KIND IN TIME BEYOND COUNTING** _

The Hound finally stops gnawing on his knee, and whatever had started nibbling on what's left of his tail and the stub of his wing is shooed away as well. Max blinks stupidly up into the void that is the Hunt, a shimmering veil of Power drawing between him and Them, shielding him from Their presence somewhat. His brain feels... bruised, though, and his thoughts are sluggish and disjointed.

_**FEWER STILL WHO LIVE SO LONG AS YOU HAVE** _

Max feels the constriction around his lungs finally lift, allowing him to suck in a great gulp of air. And it is air that he breathes in, which surprises him for some reason. He isn't sure why that surprises him, though. Or why it also surprises him that his hands are normal, human hands, when he presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to ward off the pounding headache that's threatening to batter his brain into mush.

_**THERE ARE OTHER WORLDS THAN THIS** _

Max feels a soothing, cool balm wash over his tail, his wing, his shoulder. The same sensation blossoms within his knee and within his battered mind, chasing away his headache, and the toothmarks chewed into his flesh. 

“I know,” he croaks. And he does know. He still has Power enough to slip between the shadows of the worlds to other realms that are not so ravaged as this poor, battered world is. But this had been _her_ world. This is his world, too. He'd grown to love this world. It had deserved better than this. The people had, too. 

Well, some of them.

Max wonders if that's really even true any longer.

The ache in his knee is beginning to fade. The entire ache, even that which came before.

“No. That's mine,” Max demands, shaking his head. 

_**IT NEED NOT BE** _

“It's mine.” He deserves it. He'd let them down, his Jessie and Sprog. 

_**AS YOU WISH** _

The ache returns, sinking deep into muscle and bone, but not as deep as it had been before he'd first caught the distant sounds of hooves and baying earlier in the night. Max frowns, but considers if he's really interested in debating about the specifics of his old injury to the _Hunt_. If his brain had been firing on all cylinders, he probably would have reconsidered telling Them no in the first place, truth be told. Not because of the idiocy of holding on to an old injury just for sentimentality and a deep sense of self-loathing, but because he'd never heard of anyone even speaking with the Hunt, much less arguing with Them.

_**WE RIDE TO HUNT YOUR FORMER KIN WHO SEEK TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THESE TURBULENT TIMES... BUT YOU ARE NOT THEY, AND SO, YOU ARE JUDGED, HE-WHO-WAS-ONCE-TORPHYNAHAEM** _

“Torphynahaem is dead.” What. The. Fuck. Is. He. Doing. Twice now he's corrected the Hunt. Max balls one hand into a tight fist, digging his nails into his palm to try and remind himself to keep his fucking mouth _shut_ before They decide to let the Hound back out to just swallow him down. Bad enough to be Unmade, but they still have plenty of time to torture him first!

_**IT IS AS YOU SAY, BUT YOU HAVE GIVEN NO ONE LEAVE TO VOICE THE NAME YOU HAVE CHOSEN FOR YOURSELF; WE WOULD RESPECT THAT** _

Max blinks. “Oh. Uh... you... uh... you can?” 

Reality ripples all around him, making Max dizzy for a moment, and there's a faint flavor of apples and chocolate – which shouldn't really work that well together but somehow _does_ \- in the back of his throat that just reminds him of vaguely happy things, funny things, before it fades away.

_**YOU ARE GRANTED AMNESTY FOR ALL ACTIONS TAKEN AGAINST YOUR FORMER KIN ON THIS WORLD, RYLHYMAXX, AS WELL AS AGAINST ANY FALLEN, FOR A TIME OF AT LEAST ONE HUNDRED YEARS**_

Years. Max remembers when they used to measure time by years. When there were still seasons and birthdays and anniversaries. Seems so long ago.

Wait. “Amnesty?” As in... he can shoot first with a clean conscience and no fear of... of Them?

_**INDEED. THE TERMS OF THE PACT HAVE BEEN ABROGATED BY BOTH HELL AND HEAVEN, ALTHOUGH HELL PUSHES AT THE BOUNDARIES MORE OVERTLY** _

Well, that's because the Pact is the greatest con job the Universe has ever played, but who is Max to spoil the joke for all the other suckers out there when humankind has done such a bang-up job of fucking it all up on their own. Again, reality ripples and there's that apples and chocolate sensation, but this time, there's a tinge of bitter smoke and a jangling sensation of rocks tripping down his spine before it fades. He shudders and swallows back bile and a little flicker of the dregs of his faded headache.

“What about the rest?”

_**SOME COME TO HELP. SOME COME TO TIP THE SCALES. WE TRUST YOU TO TREAT THEM ACCORDINGLY** _

Max blinks again. He feels very, _very_ stupid quite suddenly. The _Hunt_ trusts _him_ with something?

It isn't until just that moment that it hits him, though. If he has amnesty for one hundred years... the Hunt isn't planning on Unmaking him. The Hunt is, in fact, planning on letting him go. Max feels even stupider than just a moment before, and that is saying quite a lot, since he still feels like his brain's been scrambled, and then turned inside out.

“Wait... what?”

**_DO TRY NOT TO COLLECT_ TOO _MANY FEATHERS, RYLHYMAXX. IT DISAPPOINTS US WHEN WE MISJUDGE._**

Apples and mint and chocolate as Max shakes his head, trying to find his balance.

“But-”

_**KEEP TO YOUR PATH, ASCENDED. YOU ARE NEEDED** _

“But-”

Something whips free of the dizzying, indistinct blur around him, smacking Max right in the middle of his forehead with a sharp _crack_ \--

He bolts awake in the front seat of the Interceptor, panting hard for breath as he awakens from the incredibly vivid dream.

“..fuck.”

Before his heart has even had a chance to stop pounding in his chest, Max is checking his surroundings, looking for enemies, looking for anyone approaching, looking at the sky for the time and the sweeping his gaze around the interior of his car to automatically check the placement of all his weapons. Dawn on the horizon. No one approaching. His shotgun on his lap like usual. Pistol tucked under the dash, like normal. Ammo in the holder in the dash like it should be. Dog beside him--

Wait, what?

Max freezes, halfway through the motion of turning in his seat to face the passenger side of the car, his hand tightening on the stock of the sawed-off shotgun on his lap. His eyes shift sideways, catching a washed out, willowy form there, and he jumps, bringing the gun up.

Dog barks once, tongue lolling out in a doggy sort of grin as he lifts a paw to wave at Max before... just fading away. 

“S'matter, Maxie? Going spare?”

Max yells as he jerks back toward his open window and swings the shotgun around that direction, right into Goose's face. It doesn't connect.

“Of course not, mate. 'M dead,” Goose declares, reaching forward to flick Max right between the eyebrows with a fingertip, except Max scrambles backwards onto the passenger side floorboards rather than see if he can feel it. He doesn't want to know. “Still think it was just a dream, Maxie?”

“Oi!” Barry the mechanic pipes up as he comes around from the rear. “All topped off! Water, too!”

Goose grins at Max as Barry vanishes between one step and the next, while Max flails, his knee brace caught on the shifter.

There's a clatter from the roof, and Glory suddenly peeks over the edge of the passenger side window with a giggle. “Hey Pa, whatcha doing down there?”

Max lets out a noise that isn't quite a scream, but it's definitely more than a grunt as he tries to flail himself upright again. Goose just shifts so that he can rest his cheek on one fist as he leans a little further in the driver's window.

“Go easy on him, kiddo. They scrambled his brain right good, They did,” Goose admonishes. “Some things _no_ mind was ever meant to see and walk away from and all that, you know.”

Glory giggles again, her face flickering to that of a blank skull for just an instant before returning to that of a cheerfully smiling child, bouncing curls framed by small hands that grip the upper frame of the passenger window. Goose waggles a finger at her with a raised eyebrow. She sticks her tongue out at him, gives Max a wave, and then blinks out of sight.

“Right unfair of it all, I'd say.”

Max stares at Goose as he finally gets himself untangled from the gear shift and huddles on the passenger floorboard amidst the clutter of his supplies and trade goods. He swallows nervously, before finally asking, “What?”

“Well,” Goose replies with a shrug, “seems to me that if They can break you, that They oughta be able to fix you all the way, eh? Oh well. At least this ways, you'll never be alone again, right mate?”

Max lunges forward to swipe the barrel of his gun through the open window, but there's nothing there, and Goose's laughter fades into an echoing nothing across the sand.

“Dream. Just a dream. 'S'all. Fucked up dream. That's it,” Max pants as he stumbles out of his car and scans from one horizon to the other, finding nothing but more sand and rocks and what might pass for dead scrub. He's just been alone too long, and he's dreaming fucked up stuff. And with having run out of water two days ago, he's hallucinating. That's all it is. He's fever dreaming or something, because he's almost out of guzz and he's out of water, and his mind is playing tricks on him.

Yeah. That's what it is. That's got to be what it is.

Except... when he finally settles back into the Interceptor, he isn't running a fever... the fuel gauge reads full... and the way the car had settled on her shocks when he'd dropped into the seat had felt like she has a completely full water tank.

In the distance, Glory stands in the sand, waving to him.

_Are you coming Pa?_

**Author's Note:**

> so the mythology and theology and such for this world will NOT be exactly what you think it will be. :) Hopefully, that will become more clear as it needs to be when it needs to be throughout the story. If something is confusing, though, please ask me in the comments! I have pages of world notes written out for myself. If I screw something up and it confuses you, let me know so I can fix it in the story, or, at the very least, clarify it in a note or a comment for you. Some things won't be clear immediately, though, because it's going to be a little it of a journey for folks to get there, I hope. I'm way out of practice with my writing, so I'm trying to get back into practice again, and hoping that I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. I hope all y'all enjoy this, and, please, feel free to throw theories or ideas or whatever you want at me. And feel free to bug me on [tumblr](http://ravynfyretumblr.com/)!


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